COLLECTION OF ERGOT

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 182, 19 November 1941, Page 5

COLLECTION OF ERGOT

INTENSIVE DRIVE

NEED FOR WAR PURPOSES

An intensive national drive is being made for the collection $f ergot, from which is extracted valuable drugs used for medicinal purposes. A substantial part of Great Britain's normal supplies have been cut off by the war, and New Zealand is practically the only alternative source of supply of any consequence.

Ergot is a diseased transformation of the seed of grasses, but the collection in New Zealand will be restricted to two varieties of grass, tall fescue and marram grass. The collection of ergot_ in the Dominion is being sponsored by the Department of Agriculture with the co-operation of a number of organisations, whose members are taking up the work with enthusiasm. At the meeting to inaugurate the campaign the following bodies were represented:— The Women's Division of the Farmers' Union, the Women's. Institutes, the Girl Guides, the Union, the Young Farmers' Clubs' Federation, the Grain and Seed Merchants' Association, the Boy Scouts Association, and the Departments of Agriculture, Scientific and Industrial Research and Education. Mr R. B. Tennent, Director of the Fields Division of the Department of Agriculture, who presided, said that the campaign for the collection of ergot was being carried out at the request of the British Government, and those who participated were performing a patriotic dut*'He stressed the necessity of confining collection to tall fescue and marram grass, as the ergots of a number of the other grasses were practically useless for medicinal pur« poses. The ergot gathered could be sold to any member of the Gram and Seed Merchants' Association, and the price would be according to

grade. 1 In the discussion which followed It was pointed out that the best months to collect' ergot were December and January. A pamphlet setting out the technique involved is being distributed, and copies are available at any office of the Department of Agriculture. It was urged that any person who has the facilities to collect ergot should take ptirt in this work.